Untitled Post Apocalyptic Story (Heavily unfinished)

[notgeogzm]

Over the past few months, I've seen some screwed up shit. I've been put through more than a lifetime of horror, sorrow and death. Ever since the event happened, we've become accustomed to a land with no gods or kings, no rulers or laws. The event captured the world, simmered it lightly and spat it back out to us, like a cat delivering a dead mouse to its owner. Everybody. Every single person. All stragglers.

Any communities that exist are confined to a sparse amount of land, those daring to try gain hold over anything more just disintegrating due to broken trust, a lack of communication and various other hinderances which break an entire civilization. Riots and mutinies still occur despite the ravage surface. However those of us with integrity, those of us with respect, we thrive in our small groups. We're few and far between in the Hampshire wasteland. We are the ones who attempt to stay out of the pointless bloodshed and tremor, we try to live from the last vestiges of crop and water that resides in the battered loins of the earth. However, I have been separated from my herd. I fell in to a river of violence and spite and I was caught in the stream. I am lost in the wasteland of what was previously a pride nation.

After the event, radiation covered grand extents of the surface of the Earth. Entire countries were made uninhabitable. Africa was hit the worst. I always knew they'd end poverty somehow. Then there were the places where you could only stay for a month before succumbing to radiation poisoning, like Greece. Then again, those countries don't even exist anymore. The entire African continent is now known as 'The Dropzone' due to being the location of what I can only sum up as two large-scale sneak attacks colliding with each other, ultimately being concluded with the USA, Korea and China creating a nuclear soup where Mombasa once lay. However, that's just one of the many nuclear disasters the great war caused. Some call it world war three. Some call it karma. I just call it the war. It doesn't matter. Britain took a beating for backing up the United States. France was caught in the aftershock. Tokyo was bombarded from orbit which caused terror, riots took over the area and Japan was knocked out of the game.

It doesn't just mean we have to put up with a little radiation sickness and crumbled buildings though. The radiation the war created has fucked around with the food chain. The common rabbit, for example, is now around two times larger, a biped and it's equipped with large claws to boot. Some animals evolved, some dwindled, some just changed. Humanity was no exception. Most people on the surface have been weakened by radiation sickness at least once in their lives. Those who were in the wrong place at the wrong time mutated in to a variety of monstrosities, some humane, some retaining absolutely none of their humanity.

Then there are those with the gene. The unfortunate members of the human race. Those with the gene can contract a bloodbourne disease called Radiation-Induced Oxygen Insufficiency Disease, or for short, RIOID. The disease was a treacherous one, slowly removing the bloods ability to carry oxygen, resulting in extreme muscle starvation and the brain dying from a lack of oxygen.

However, the war took place one-hundred and sixty years ago, in 2031. The date I happen to be writing this "journal" on is March 19, 2191. It's taken me a whole year to muster up the effort to write down what happened between March 19, 2189 and April 1, 2190.

It all began in Espoir, the village I've lived in since I was just a baby. I was nineteen. It was the week I was going to move to my own home that I had constructed from sheets of metal and various other supplies from the wastes. The thing about Espoir is there was hardly any radiation. It was located in a small valley, like a natural cul-de-sac. According to village legend, the forefathers (a band of men who were shunned from the centre) dug a hole in the ground to hide in one night, which somehow evolved in to the early Espoir. Espoir was constructed in 2051, just seven years after the surface of the Hampshire wastes became habitable. The Hampshire wastes are one of the four de-facto 'countries' on the island. They take their name from the old county of Hampshire before the war. In the north, there's the Yorkshire Wastes. I have heard little about them, merely that they exist. Then there's two countries right next to eachother, Lincoln and Wiltshire. Then there's the Hampshire wastes. There are various commonwealths dotted around as well, like the Islanders Commonwealth, on what was apparently called the 'Isle of Wight' pre-war. According to old legend, the Island was previously a majestic kingdom, with riches and luxuries everywhere. People had all the food in the world at their disposal and they used paper money to obtain it. Clean water was plentiful and there were several counties which co-existed in peace.

If it weren't for the war, I'd be living in that dream world. But I digress. Espoir is an old, off-the-radar place constructed over the ruins of a pre-war village called Pimperne. I would write about how tranquil and happy Pimperne was before the event, but then you'd probably forget the purpose of this account.

----------------

So I've written this short little intro to a story about the apocalypse. It's nothing special yet, just something to practice writing skills and such. This is loosely inspired by HellMOO. Just wanna know what you think of it before I write more.

[Oblivious1]

Horrid critic powers activate!

[QUOTE=geogzm;31466343]Over the past few months, I've seen some screwed up shit. I've been put through more than a lifetime of horror, sorrow and death. [b]Ever since the event happened[/b], we've become accustomed to a land with no gods or kings, no rulers or laws. [b]The event captured[/b] the world, simmered it lightly and spat it back out to us, like a cat delivering a dead mouse to its owner. Everybody. Every single person. All stragglers.
[i]Bolded part is cliched and tasteless, name the event or something, nobody called Hurricane Katrina "the hurricane". Lack of description. I like how it's pretty realistic in sense that it's someone telling story. I'll bet microsoft word went grammar error on the "Everybody. Every single person. All stragglers." Try "Everybody, every single person; All stragglers." It's the same thing with the right grammar.[/i]

Any communities that exist are confined to a sparse amount of land, those daring to try gain hold over anything more just disintegrating due to broken trust, a lack of communication and various other hinderances which break an entire civilization. Riots and mutinies still occur despite the ravage surface. However those of us with integrity, those of us with respect, we thrive in our small groups. We're few and far between in the Hampshire wasteland. We are the ones who attempt to stay out of the pointless bloodshed and tremor, we try to live from the last vestiges of crop and water that resides in the battered loins of the earth. However, I have been separated from my herd. I fell in to a river of violence and spite and I was caught in the stream. I am lost in the wasteland of what was previously a pride nation.
[i]Grammar mistakes seem to appear more often here. Sounds a bit factual or sciency, and for that, it's a bit tasteless.[/i]

After the event, radiation covered grand extents of the surface of the Earth. Entire countries were made uninhabitable. Africa was hit the worst. I always knew they'd end poverty somehow. Then there were the places where you could only stay for a month before succumbing to radiation poisoning, like Greece. Then again, those countries don't even exist anymore. The entire African continent is now known as 'The Dropzone' due to being the location of what I can only sum up as two large-scale sneak attacks colliding with each other, ultimately being concluded with the USA, Korea and China creating a nuclear soup where Mombasa once lay. However, that's just one of the many nuclear disasters the great war caused. Some call it world war three. Some call it karma. I just call it the war. It doesn't matter. Britain took a beating for backing up the United States. France was caught in the aftershock. Tokyo was bombarded from orbit which caused terror, riots took over the area and Japan was knocked out of the game.

It doesn't just mean we have to put up with a little radiation sickness and crumbled buildings though. The radiation the war created has fucked around with the food chain. The common rabbit, for example, is now around two times larger, a biped and it's equipped with large claws to boot. Some animals evolved, some dwindled, some just changed. Humanity was no exception. Most people on the surface have been weakened by radiation sickness at least once in their lives. Those who were in the wrong place at the wrong time mutated in to a variety of monstrosities, some humane, some retaining absolutely none of their humanity.

Then there are those with the gene. The unfortunate members of the human race. Those with the gene can contract a bloodbourne disease called Radiation-Induced Oxygen Insufficiency Disease, or for short, RIOID. The disease was a treacherous one, slowly removing the bloods ability to carry oxygen, resulting in extreme muscle starvation and the brain dying from a lack of oxygen.

However, the war took place one-hundred and sixty years ago, in 2031. The date I happen to be writing this "journal" on is March 19, 2191. It's taken me a whole year to muster up the effort to write down what happened between March 19, 2189 and April 1, 2190.

It all began in Espoir, the village I've lived in since I was just a baby. I was nineteen. It was the week I was going to move to my own home that I had constructed from sheets of metal and various other supplies from the wastes. The thing about Espoir is there was hardly any radiation. It was located in a small valley, like a natural cul-de-sac. According to village legend, the forefathers (a band of men who were shunned from the centre) dug a hole in the ground to hide in one night, which somehow evolved in to the early Espoir. Espoir was constructed in 2051, just seven years after the surface of the Hampshire wastes became habitable. The Hampshire wastes are one of the four de-facto 'countries' on the island. They take their name from the old county of Hampshire before the war. In the north, there's the Yorkshire Wastes. I have heard little about them, merely that they exist. Then there's two countries right next to eachother, Lincoln and Wiltshire. Then there's the Hampshire wastes. There are various commonwealths dotted around as well, like the Islanders Commonwealth, on what was apparently called the 'Isle of Wight' pre-war. According to old legend, the Island was previously a majestic kingdom, with riches and luxuries everywhere. People had all the food in the world at their disposal and they used paper money to obtain it. Clean water was plentiful and there were several counties which co-existed in peace.

If it weren't for the war, I'd be living in that dream world. But I digress. Espoir is an old, off-the-radar place constructed over the ruins of a pre-war village called Pimperne. I would write about how tranquil and happy Pimperne was before the event, but then you'd probably forget the purpose of this account.

----------------

So I've written this short little intro to a story about the apocalypse. It's nothing special yet, just something to practice writing skills and such. This is loosely inspired by HellMOO. Just wanna know what you think of it before I write more.[/QUOTE]

Skip the rest of it. I think you need more description to it or something. It feels very factual.

If I were to write this, I'd rather let the story introduce itself progressively rather than shove it all down in one big passage.

[mako_]

The first paragraph sets the scene as being just recently post-"event". Then after a bit it's revealed that it's actually 100+ years afterwards. The second paragraph is riddled with what I supposed are typos. The third paragraph makes the narrator out to be knowledgeable and well-informed of modern times and what went on before and around this "event", but by the time you get to the end he's in conjecture about "legends" of paper money and majestic kingdoms co-existing in peace, like some sort of idiot who thinks he's talking about some century BC from word of mouth. Aside from that, am I to understand that China & Korea and the USA both tried to attack each other VIA AFRICA? I call shenanigans and poorly-thought-out preludes

The fourth paragraph; seriously, giant BIPEDAL rabbits? I would have another go at making up a mutated animal if I was you. Also your occasional use of the word fuck in what is more or less a sort of pamphlet this person is writing (I suppose in case an alien arrives and is utterly ignorant of what's happening on the planet since there's no other reason someone would write a journal in this fashion) is rather out of place. The fifth paragraph seems to be purely a setup for an equivilant situation later, where some character has this weakness to radiation. I find it difficult to believe that anyone would research and document this gene thing during the apocalypse, let alone manage to get the resulting knowledge widespread in a land where it's everyone vs. everyone. The seventh paragraph has some little things bugging me in it; firstly, I'm not sure whether you're trying to imply that Scotland, Wales and parts of England were bombed until they were entirely under sea level, but from the names of your areas, it sounds like "the island" is only composed of central England. I would be disinclined to set a story in a real place that I wasn't very familiar with - maybe you were raised in the UK, I don't know, I'm just going off your US flag. Also, into is one word, and you should choose whether to capitalise Wastes or not, once and for all.

To close, I have to come back to the narrator's split between someone living in 2191 and someone who IS 2191. No one these days says "forefathers" and I don't think it's going to come back into vogue.

[editline]2nd August 2011[/editline]

Oh, and I was going to come back to the "event" turning out to be straightforward war. Why wouldn't he just say that in the first place?

[editline]2nd August 2011[/editline]

Of course other than that stuff, it's great! :v:

[notgeogzm]

[QUOTE=MakoSkyDub;31468106]The first paragraph sets the scene as being just recently post-"event". Then after a bit it's revealed that it's actually 100+ years afterwards. The second paragraph is riddled with what I supposed are typos. The third paragraph makes the narrator out to be knowledgeable and well-informed of modern times and what went on before and around this "event", but by the time you get to the end he's in conjecture about "legends" of paper money and majestic kingdoms co-existing in peace, like some sort of idiot who thinks he's talking about some century BC from word of mouth. Aside from that, am I to understand that China & Korea and the USA both tried to attack each other VIA AFRICA? I call shenanigans and poorly-thought-out preludes

The fourth paragraph; seriously, giant BIPEDAL rabbits? I would have another go at making up a mutated animal if I was you. Also your occasional use of the word fuck in what is more or less a sort of pamphlet this person is writing (I suppose in case an alien arrives and is utterly ignorant of what's happening on the planet since there's no other reason someone would write a journal in this fashion) is rather out of place. The fifth paragraph seems to be purely a setup for an equivilant situation later, where some character has this weakness to radiation. I find it difficult to believe that anyone would research and document this gene thing during the apocalypse, let alone manage to get the resulting knowledge widespread in a land where it's everyone vs. everyone. The seventh paragraph has some little things bugging me in it; firstly, I'm not sure whether you're trying to imply that Scotland, Wales and parts of England were bombed until they were entirely under sea level, but from the names of your areas, it sounds like "the island" is only composed of central England. I would be disinclined to set a story in a real place that I wasn't very familiar with - maybe you were raised in the UK, I don't know, I'm just going off your US flag. Also, into is one word, and you should choose whether to capitalise Wastes or not, once and for all.

To close, I have to come back to the narrator's split between someone living in 2191 and someone who IS 2191. No one these days says "forefathers" and I don't think it's going to come back into vogue.

[editline]2nd August 2011[/editline]

Oh, and I was going to come back to the "event" turning out to be straightforward war. Why wouldn't he just say that in the first place?

[editline]2nd August 2011[/editline]

Of course other than that stuff, it's great! :v:[/QUOTE]

[img]http://gyazo.com/f49042060c5e73f8ae10c0a832b4a9fb.png[/img]

Wait shit why do I have a US flag?

Also, I want the event to be more than just war. Like something else. I'm not sure. But yeah, I probably should have thought about all those contradictions :v:

And the whole africa thing doesn't really make sense I'll admit. I'll change it to china or something.